The graphic arts industry is faced with the problem of transferring bundles of printed sheets or signatures from one location to another. It is known practice to stack sheets from a stream of sheets and into a stack, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,933,313. The stack of sheets can then be bound into a bundle. At that point, it is of concern to move the bound stack of sheets to the sheet feeder so that the sheets can then be fed to a collector or gatherer. The present invention provides a method and apparatus for efficiently and accurately moving the bound bundles to a pallet whereupon the collection of bundles, via the pallet, can then be moved to the feeder. Also, the bundles can be moved from the collection and to the feeder. That is, this invention eliminates the heretofore bottleneck whereby the bound bundles were previously laboriously moved or collected at the stacker output, and the continuous flow of the bundles was thus interupted and created a problem.
The present invention provides a method and apparatus of continuously moving the bound bundles from a pick-up station and to a remote location, and it does so in an automatic arrangement whereby no manual lifting or guidance is required. In accomplishing these advantages, this invention can utilize the fluid cylinder assemblies such as those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,820,446. One phase is clamping and palletizing of bundles, and the overhead lifting and transporting of the bundles from the stacker and to the pallet. Also, German Democratic Republic Patent #18354 shows a cable type of lift for bundles, but, the present invention differs from that disclosure in the respect that the present invention handles bound bundles and moves them continuously from a stacker and locates them into a collection or stacked arrangement on a pallet where the bundles are disposed side-by-side and each bundle is free standing or self contained and need not require a special carrier or basket, and the method and apparatus of this invention is fully automated to where there is a continuous movement of the bundles from the stacker and to the pallet until the pallet is filled with the desired number of bundles.
Other objects and advantages have become apparent upon reading the following description in light of the accompanying drawings.